Support is requested to continue an ongoing longitudinal panel study of persons with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for three more waves of data collection. The self-report questionnaire methodology which was used exclusively to collect the first nine waves of data will be supplemented by interviews and, for a subsample of subjects, objective measures of pain behavior, function, and disease activity. The original panel of subjects, which currently numbers 200, will be supplemented with a newly recruited panel of 60 subjects to increase the sample size for analyses incorporating the objective measures. After these three new waves of data have been collected, the original panel of subjects would have been followed for a total of ten years. A stress-coping conceptual framework is used to examine adaptation over time to this crippling chronic disease. The principal components of the model are disease-related events, generalized beliefs regarding personal control, external resources such as social support, appraisals, stress responses, coping behaviors, short-term psychological and psychosocial outcomes, and indicators of health/ breakdown. The interviews will be conducted over the telephone, audiotaped, and, where feasible, simultaneously coded into a computer data base. Interview questions will allow us to ascertain the stakes that are threatened by the condition, primary and secondary appraisals of threat, emotional reactions to and ways of coping with the threats, and additional information regarding social supports. Content analyses will be carried out on subjects' responses to open-ended questions on the interview. The measures to be assessed during home visits to subjects living within an hour's driving distance are walk time, grip strength, and an articular index of joint involvement. These home visits will be videotaped and rated for objective pain behaviors. Longitudinal data analyses will be conducted utilizing path analyses, hierarchical regressions, and the LISREL computer program to conduct structural equation modeling. Information obtained during data collection will be used to design nursing interventions to help RA patients and their significant others cope with this condition.